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UCL in the News: Spine injuries maybe repaired by a nose
10 May 2008
Simon Midgley, 'The Times' Geoffrey Raisman … director of the Spinal Repair Unit at the UCL Institute of Neurology, leads a research team whose work could ultimately lead to the repair of spinal cord injuries in humans.
Raisman's key discovery was that there is one part of the nervous system - nerve fibres in the nasal cavity - that continually renews itself. If his experimental work with rats can be replicated with humans then patients could become their own cell donors.
In the next year or two the team is hoping to conduct a preliminary safety trial of the technique at the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery in London. …
"In the long run," he says, "We hope this will get people out of wheelchairs."
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